One day not long ago there was a report in the news about how the Chinese government has been rounding up human rights activists and other critics of the regime, jailing some and putting others under house arrest to prevent them from becoming an embarrassment during the forthcoming Beijing Olympics.
There was no mention of even a timid murmur of dismay from the International Olympic Committee. Never mind the niceties. Build it, and we will come.
The next day there was a story about how nearly 200 Chinese patients have been harmed, and in some cases paralyzed, by a contaminated leukemia drug made in Shanghai. The maker of that drug exports another of its products to the U.S.
Over the years, there've been repeated cases of unapproved or mislabeled pharmaceutical products from China being turned back at the U.S. border.
And this is not to mention the much-publicized scandals in recent times of defective tires, lead-laced toys and poisonous pet food.
It happened that I'd just finished reading the drug story when I was instructed by my wife to try on a pair of trousers she'd ordered for me from a catalog.
She claims — rightly, I must admit — that if it weren't for her I'd probably pass unclothed through the world. So with some regularity packages arrive at the door.
I auditioned the pants as commanded. The label said they were Chinese- made, and there was a problem. The buttonhole at the top was defective — way too small. I'd have had to cut it with my pocketknife to get the button through without dislocating a thumb.
Call me small-minded, if you like. Or petty, or whatever. But combined with the news of the pre-Olympic crackdown on dissidents, this little frustration was the last straw.
In that moment I initiated my personal boycott of products made in the People's Republic.
I am not a crank. I have no illusion my small protest will come to the attention of the individuals in that country who maintain power by intimidation and abuse. I do it for my own satisfaction, understanding full well that it will have no effect whatever.
Neither do I intend to ransack the house in search of articles bearing the offending mark, for I suspect they would be so many as to make that impractical.
No, the policy is not retroactive. It begins now.
For a start, I inspected the label in the trousers that I got from the closet to wear in place of the ones to be returned to the mail order folks. Then I looked at the tag inside the collar of the turtleneck with which I planned to cover my upper half.
Regrettably, as it turns out, both were made in Third World countries where, as in most of the poorer societies on the planet, political and economic shortcomings are all too common.
But the subject here is not generalized injustice. I'm speaking of one very large offender.
You often hear it said that commercial relations with Beijing and that country's investments in the U.S. are indispensable to the health of our economy — such as it is.
And that may very well be. But that doesn't oblige me to wear China on my back.
